Ladybirds

The base coat for this manicure is Sally Hanson's Ruby Stilettos from the Xtreme wear line.  The stamping was done using Konad black and the plate used was MoYou London's Princess, Plate 14.

Rimmel Ring A Ring O Roses

This is a creme polish from Rimmel's 60 Second line.  It's opaque in two coats, but you have to be quite quick in aplying it and not brush over the same areas more than once or twice because it dries so fast that the polish can get dragged over the nail if you spend to much time on it.  I'm not a huge fan of this line for that reason, but they do have some lovely colours.

This is Ring A Ring O Roses which is a lovely mid pink colour.  It's also a pretty good dupe for OPI's Pinking Of You.  I'd say out of the two, that this has the better formula, since despite the difficulties caused by the quick drying time, it is much more opaque.  Pinking of you is quite sheer and require at least three coats.

And here is it stamped ver using Mundo De Unos stamping polish in light pink (#25)

The stamping plate used for this design was MoYou London's Pro Collection, Plate 7

Polish Comparison - Left Rimmel Ring A Ring O Roses, Right OPI Pinking Of You

As you can see from the swatch sticks these two polishes are virtually the same colour.  Pinking of You is ever so slightly lighter, but you would never see the difference unless in direct sunlight.

OPI Minnie Style

This is the same Glow in the dark polish as the previous post, but this time with a layer of OPI's "Minnie Style" over the top of it.  Minnie Style is a glitter polish consisting of medium size hex glitters in matt white and metallic red in a clear base.

Ethereal Lacquer - Gossamer

This is an Indie polish purchased at Rainbow Connection which is a glow in the dark.  It's a bit lumpy to apply if you layer it too thick, so it's best either over a layer of white polish, or with two quite thin coats and a good amount of top coat.  

Hearts & Script

This manicure uses Essie's Angel food as the base, which is quite a sheer polish and so needed three coats.  It was then stamped with a script in OPI's Rage, which is a lovely rose gold polish, before being stamped a second time using a heart design and Color Club's Miss Bliss which is a holographic pink polish.

The stamping plates used were by MoYou London.  The script stamp is from the Princes Collection, Plate 11, and the Hearts are from the Pro Collection, Plate 09.

Moyra Polish Review - Pink Cream #85

This is the second polish review for Moyra UK.  This time the polish is a cool mid-tone pink cream, #85.    It has the same bottle as the first texture effect polish I reviewed and I wondered if a cream polish would do better in this shaped bottle.  I am glad to report that it did!  There were no problems whatsoever in using this polish, and being a thinner consistency than a gritty texture polish, it did not have any of the drip issues that I had encountered with the first polish.

This was a lovely polish to work with.  I expected that there may have been some application issues with it being on the paler side of pink, but it applied extremely easily.  A little streaky on the first coat, but what polish isn't?  Completely opaque on the second coat however without issue.

The colour reminded me of OPI's Mod About You which is a bit of a cult colour, but can be rather expensive.  Moyra informed me after my last review that their polish retails at around £3.00 per bottle, so that's less than half the price of OPI.  When comparing the two swatches, I could only see a small colour difference, with the Moyra polish being a little darker than the OPI, so this is a much cheaper alternative if you are on a budget, or just don't want to spend that amount of money on a nail polish.
Here's a comparison of the two:

Left to Right: Moyra #85; OPI Mod About You

Both polishes are shown in the above picture without topcoat.  The Moyra polish dries to a glossy finish, but is even glossier after applying top top.  Here's how it looked on my nails after top coat was applied:

I wore the polish for a day, then decided to see how it looked with some nail art.  I stamped over it with China Glaze Joy, and also added a coat of China Glaze Fairy Dust.  I think this shows how versatile a cream polish can be, and how you can get many different looks out of one polish.

Pros: Easy formula to work with, opaque in two coats, dries to a glossy finish, great anytime colour - work appropriate on it's own, but can be dressed up with additional nail art.

Cons:  It did develop a few bubbles upon drying, but these disappeared after adding top coat - This could have been my application method however - Sometimes, you have to get to know your polish ;-)

Would I buy from this range? - Absolutely, if the formula is as good with the rest of the cream polishes from Moyra, I wouldn't hesitate to buy another.

Moyra Polish Review - Sand Polish

Some time ago I signed up for the chance to review some of the Moyra brand polishes, and have just received 3 bottles for review, a sand effect, a cream and a pastel.

This is the first of three reviews, firstly looking at the sand polish.   The bottle I was sent was a deep denim blue blue (# 854), which was really nice to see.  I have many textured polishes in my collection, and many blues, but all of them are much more green leaning, or Tiffany type blue.  This one is a true denim colour, and a colour I had looked to purchase in the past, but hadn't been able to find.

Here's what it looks like on:

Having worn the polish for a few days, I can say that it wears reasonably well.  A few chips appeared after the third day of wear, as well as some tip wear on day two.  However, this is comparable to a lot of polishes I own, and given the amount of work my hands were doing during this time frame I thought it had "reeasonable" durability.

The colour is gorgeous and unlike any other texture polish I have.  The texture is definately there, but not so pronounced that your nails are likely to snag on things.  I would say it has a similar texture to Zoya Pixie Dust, being fine sand like particles without any larger additional textural elements such as hex glitters etc.

The finish, not unlike other texture polishes, is matt, though a top coat can be applied to give a smooth and glossy finish.  It had a nice amount of sparkle in the form of ultra fine glitter particles.  These were not over powering or too glitzy, making it a perfect anytime polish.

Brush Size:

The brush was kind of small and narrow, which it needed to be for the size of the bottle, but it was nothing special.  It compares to the small brush you find in Essie polishes, so if you like the thin style of brush, you would like this one.

Here's a comparison:

Brush Size Left to Right: Essie Brush, Moyra Brush

As you can see the Moyra brush is a little bigger than the Essie one, but it's pretty similar.  I think the photo makes it look quite a bit larger, but most of what you see is the texture polish on the brush.  In real life there's not much in it.

Brush Comparison Left to Right: OPI, Moyra

In comparison to an OPI brush, the Myra brush is very thin.  Personally, I prefer the larger brushes, especially for a sand texture, but that is just my personal choice.

Now for the negatives.  The bottle was awful and made application more difficult than it should have been.  This was due to the top of the bottle being incredibly narrow, and therefore everytime you tried to pull out the brush, the polish wanted to drip all over the place.  It took me a while to realise it was the bottle and not the polish that was the problem.  Here are some bottle shots of the Moyra polish compared to some other popular brands to show how narrow it is:

Bottle Tops Left to Right: Moyra, Essie, OPI, China Glaze

You can probably see on the Moyra bottle that the polish is all around the top and there was no way to avoid this with such a narrow opening.  Moreover, if you look at the brush comparison photographs above, you can see the result of the polish being dragged out of the bottle - it's all up the sides of the brush stick.  I was really not impressed with the mess this made, and drips it created whilst trying to apply the polish.

Overall opinion:

The polish is great, has a really nice texture and is opaque in two coats.  It wears reasonably well, though not quite as durable as other texture polishes I own.  The colour was a real bonus for me.  A really beautiful deep denim blue.  Everyone else seems stuck on creating teal or Tiffany blue polishes in the texture range!

So, would I buy another one?  Probably not, unless they changed the bottle.  It was just to painful to be bothered with when there is already so much choice on the market.  For me to buy this as it is currently being packaged, it would have to be a really unique colour.  I'm hoping the cream polishes will fair better with this narrow necked bottle.  We'll see in my next review!